Elisabeth Fritzl’s first boyfriend has spoken for the first time about the
time they spent together immediately before she was locked up by her father.

The man, named only as Andreas K, 42, went to a gastronomy school with Elisabeth in 1984, where she trained to become a waitress and he was a cook apprentice.

They both spent two moths at a boarding school and last saw each other only one month before Elisabeth’s father Josef, 73, locked her up in his cellar and kept her as a sex slave for the next 24 years, fathering seven children with her.

Mr K believed the story that she had joined a cult and was shocked to learn the truth about her ordeal from the media.

Mr K described Sissy, as he called Elisabeth, who was 18 at the time, as a “pretty, but serious and withdrawn girl.”

He said: “I saw her in the school yard for the first time. I quickly fell in love with her and I noticed that she was slowly opening up and started to show interest in me.

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“It was not so simple to be intimate because such things were not allowed in the school and there were only few opportunities to make out. The girl’s dormitory was a strict taboo and any boy who would be caught there would have been expelled from the school.”

According to K, they used to go for long walks in the woods, where they would spend time together. Although they were physically intimate, the couple never had sex because Elisabeth “would suddenly pull back”. At that stage she had already been sexually abused by her father for over seven years, according to what she told police.

Mr K said: “We found us a place where we could be close and gentle to each other. She was very tender but also very timid. We never slept with each other, she did not want to — or was not able to. In such moments she would suddenly pull back like a snail in its house.

“She spoke of her parents and her home only once, and said that she had a very strict father. She said he got her a waitress apprenticeship at a tank station, but that she would have preferred to become a cosmetician.”

During their time together the couple went on short trips to Vienna and once saw the musical The West Side Story.

At the party before the end of the course Elisabeth reportedly had too much to drink.

“Sissy had too much wine to drink and became all hyper. But at least we stayed together until the early morning hours.”

The last time he saw Sissy was when her parents picked her up from the school to take her home in July 1984, only one month before her ordeal begun. Mr K was not allowed to say goodbye as Elisabeth climbed into her father’s grey Mercedes because she was banned from talking to boys.

“I wasn’t allowed to see her out because her father was not supposed to see me. She would have been in trouble if he did.”

A month later, on August 28, Josef Fritzl lured Elisabeth into a dungeon in his cellar and locked her up for the next two and a half decades.

Mr K said: "As we kissed goodbye, we promised each other to write as often as possible. But than I thought she had lost interest in me. Now I realise she was no longer able to answer my letters.” In the month before her disappearance, Elisabeth would write about her boyfriend Andreas to a friend, named only as Ernst, 42, who also went to the same gastronomy school.

He also came forward after seeing the news about her release. He said: “It was a huge shock. I was terribly shaken, but also very angry and full of hate for her father.

“But now the media only paint a picture of Elisabeth as a victim. I would like to show the world a different image of Elisabeth, as I knew her. She was a happy girl that enjoyed life and had plans for the future.

“I didn’t know that she had been abused by her father. Now I think to myself: why had she not said anything? I spent 24 years living a good life in freedom, and Sissy was locked up for all that time. That is not right.

“I hate her father very, very much. If I had a say, he would get a much harder punishment that what he is facing today. Our laws are far too lax.” Ernst has now written a letter to Elisabeth, 24 years after their last correspondence, which reads: “Dear Sissy, why have you never mentioned your worries and problems in your letters. I would have surely been able to help you.

“For me you are a 'hero’.

“I wish you and your children all the best for the future.”

Meanwhile, Austrian police are investigating whether Josef Fritzl was involved in the unresolved murder of Anna Neumayr, a 17-year-old girl who was found dead in a corn field near her home in Pfaffstaett bei Mattinghofen in Lower Austria in 1966. Ms Neumayr was killed with a captive bolt pistol used to slaughter live stock and police at the time suspected sexual motives.

A police spokesman said: “We will investigate whether there is anything to indicate that Josef Fritzl was near the scene at the time.” Less than a year after the murder, in 1967, Fritzl, then 32, was convicted for a rape and an attempted rape.